Grosjean was able to outqualify Nico Rosberg's Mercedes as he set the fourth fastest time in Q3, while Mark Webber's 10-place grid penalty promotes him to third on the grid. Permane said the way Grosjean approached the session and delivered the laps in each part of qualifying impressed the team and made its strategy a success.

"We're very happy with Romain's qualifying position after a textbook performance through all three sessions with everything going absolutely to plan," Permane said. "He soaked up the extra pressure to get through the first session using only the medium compound tyre and the benefit of doing that was having two sets of the super soft in the final session."

Grosjean himself was not getting carried away with the potential opportunities his grid position would open up.

"It's not too bad; we said we wanted to fight with the Mercedes for qualifying and that's where we are," Grosjean said. "I think the Red Bulls are very quick but it's good to be P4. Then to gain the position is not the way you would like but rules are rules and I will take it as a positive to start on the clean side of the track.

"The race is going to be long, it's going to be interesting with the tyres if they have a big degradation so we will keep up our good job and try to go for the best result that we can."